Plodding along

Not alot of quilting is happening at the moment.  

I have finished the handstitching on a project that I've been taking along to my evening  stitching groups.  Now what to do with it?

 


Machine quilted wide spaced curving lines, also some bobbin work.   

Then 'coloured in' with hand stitching using a range of threads and stitches.  

Inspired by the work of Carol Ann Waugh.

 a closer look














 a few threads















The reason why there hasn't been any quilting is that I've been sewing a formal dress for my daughter. 

It has taken some time as I've been over cautious, with good reason as there have been expensive sewing failures in my past.  I've been so tempted to work on other things but have persevered. The deadline is Friday, just the hem and a button to sew on plus a bit of thread trimming.

A bit of the same

Last year I made a banner for my daughter's hockey team.  This year she is in a different team so another banner was needed.

My plan was to make this years banner bigger.  Off I went to Pete's Emporium to hopefully buy the same fabric as last year.  One of the things about Pete's Emporium is that the stock changes - there was no yellow/gold or black like I'd used last year.  There was a stronger/thicker yellow and a small piece (less than 1m) of black.  The amount of black dictated the size of the banner - similar size to last year ~1m x ~1.5m. 

Using the no-pin technique with my current favourite for a range of quilting uses - blue painters tape.  

The words are printed in Word and are about 500 point.  







 
Freemotion quilted around each letter three times.  Way easier than trying to manoeuvre the weight of the material around all those curves and corners.




 


Removing the paper (well most of it).

The next step is to carefully cut away the black to reveal the yellow lettering - reverse applique.

Repeating the process for the Wellington Hockey emblem. 

To complete the banner, stitched the black to the yellow, added a full size peice of yellow to the back, then added the eyelets - one banner.

 

The banner has had one outing with another one soon.

Planning - just a bit over rated

When I start a new project I try to allow plenty of time ... however sometimes things made at the last minute turn out the best.   

Yesterday my daughter went to an 'Adventure Time' themed birthday party.  While she has watched this show it really isn't one I've taken much notice of, well not the characters anyway.

She was going to go as Fionna, wearing a plainish blue tshirt, skort and I thought that was it.  She then decided at ~12pm (party at 2.30pm) that she needed a hat like Finn wears.  

So after a few Google searches we were off ...  while acrylic felt would probably have been the best, I only had a few strips of white polyester batting, the dense variety not the boofy type.  Sewed these together to get two pieces long enough to cover her face/head, then sewed them into a tube.  Then stitched across the top creating ears at either end.  Finally cutting out an oval shape for the face.

There was a bit of a fit issue as the pony tail out the back was creating an odd bit of drag.  Her suggestion was to cut a flap instead of a full circle - excellent idea and worked well.  

It was easy working with batting - just cut wherever, no need to finish off seams or edges.  Not sure about the comfort level for the wearer, luckily the day wasn't too hot.

Repurposing

My daughter has a sports singlet/tank that she enjoys wearing and has been asking for another one.  As she is quite slim it has been tricky finding singlets that fit her.  

So one day I had an a-ha moment and thought it would be quite easy to make her one.  I could use the one she has and sort of cut the pattern from that.

None of the local fabric shops stock the knit material that the bought ones use.  One day when I happened to be in The Warehouse I found a woman's XL t-shirt in just the right colour and type of fabric, a bargain at $12!  I'm definitely not an XL, I figured that the largest size I could get would increase the cutting options.

So carefully cutting around the existing singlet (who needs paper patterns!) I easily got a front and back from the larger top.  The bias strips for the arm holes and neck were abit trickier to get.

The singlet fits her and she wears it!  I didn't quite get the neckband right, when it is on it fits a bit better.

front

back

remains of orginal t-shirt

Tote Bag

My quilting bag that I use to cart my quilting/stitching stuff around is rather tatty and definitely needs replacing.  The problem was finding just the right pattern that had all the features I thought I required.  

I regularly follow Adrianne's blog (www.onthewindyside.co.nz/), she's had a few posts about making Tote bags.  Finally I thought I'd just do it and make a tote using her tutorial (here). 

Adrianne uses Soft and Stable in her bags instead of batting or interfacing. I happened to be in Stitchbird one Saturday (see here about why I'm often in Kilbirnie on a Saturday) and bought some Soft and Stable.  The fabric is also from Stitchbird. 

Her instructions are excellent and include a number of very good tips.  I added an inside pocket - next time it'll be bigger and maybe with a zip closure.  As I didn't have any tape for the handles I covered the off cuts of the Soft and Stable with some of the bag material.

Using the Soft and Stable was easy, one of the great things about it is the bag is mostly free-standing.  Also, it doesn't need to be quilted although I did.

I already have an order for a second one.  My daughter has chosen the fabric and wants a slightly smaller one - which is fine as I have a smaller piece of soft and stable left over.  Now to convince her that she could sew it or at least some of it!

Finally, for those in Wellington do go and visit Stitchbird's new shop - just a hop and a skip (not even a jump) across the driveway from their old shop.

Success

Below is a photo of the completed and signed banner hanging at the Rawleigh Hockey Tournament in Wanganui last week.  

After four days of great hockey the Wellington 'under 13b' team came home with the trophy.  The banner was a success as well, thanks to enough eyelets and cable ties it stayed in place during a range of weather!

banner in place - maybe it could have been a bit bigger!!

Almost a Quilt

My current project is a banner for my daughter's rep hockey team.  Now banners aren't usually like a quilt - well this one is - three layers of fabric stitched together, just no batting. 

After volunteering to make the banner my first thoughts were to use paint - I hadn't quite worked out how I'd create stencils so big and what fabric to use.  Searching local fabric stores - the best I could find was black calico - not very inspiring.  

During a visit to Nancys I mentioned to Mary what I needed to do and it is thanks to her for the suggestion to use layers of fabric and cut away the top.  That was it - I was off - only problem was to find some suitable fabric - last option Pete's Emporium.  After spending a while ferretting around their fabric - for those that don't know Pete's Emporium their fabric is stacked randomly and in a rather crowded fashion.  I found some sturdy black nylon and just the right yellow, for Wellington colours, raincoat-like nylon.  

Before going large scale (1.5m x 1m), I created a prototype.  

prototype

For the letters I used Microsoft Word, printed the letters as an outline, pinned the paper to the layers of fabric, stitched along the lines, ripped the paper away and carefully cut (only one minor snip in the wrong place) away the black top layer revealing the yellow below.   I had four layers, as my plan was to have the banner double sided, this quickly changed.  Mostly because of the bulk.

paper pattern

A hint: in Word underline each letter so when the letters are taped together just match the horizontal and vertical lines of the underlines and the letters will line up nicely.  

paper partly removed

I'd used the underlines so I could line up the horizontal lines and it was a happy accident to discover that matching the vertical lines meant the letters were correctly spaced!

 



To create the final pattern I again used Word - the big letters are 550 point.  After printing the pages, I taped them together and then taped them to the fabric. Changing the needle on my machine to a denim needle, stitched along the lines.  For the first letter I carefully turned the fabric as I sewed around each corner.  I only did that once!!  The rest of the letters were stitched free motion, yah for all that quilting practice!  The nylon doesn't seem to fray so just a few rounds of straight stitching was enough.

Almost finished ...

...  just need to finish the edges and add some eyelets.